Globe Life Field has been open for less than five years but it already holds a special place in Arizona baseball history. That MLB stadium is where the Chip Hale era at the UA began four years ago, and where it resumes this weekend when the Wildcats open the 2025 season by competing in the Shriners Children’s College Showdown in Arlington, Texas.
That 2022 team, which included a few holdovers from the 2021 squad that reached the College World Series, went 3-0 against a field that included two future Big 12 opponents. This time around the Wildcats will face Ole Miss, Clemson and Louisville, part of another challenging nonconference schedule.
Hale, who played for the UA in the mid-1980s and went on to play and manage in the big leagues, was a first-time college coach who returned to his alma mater with uncertain expectations. He’s quieted most of the doubters by leading the Wildcats to three straight NCAA Tournament appearances as well as a sweep of the Pac-12 regular season and conference tourney titles in 2024, and this year’s squad figures to be his best yet.
Arizona is a consensus preseason Top 25 team and was picked to finish second in the Big 12. Just getting back to the postseason won’t be good enough, though, as the UA has the kind of team that could get back to Omaha if it can meet expectations.
“Nobody really knows until that first pitch is thrown what your club is going to be like,” Hale said Tuesday. “I know there’s all these expectations and rankings of all the teams across the country, but I don’t think any coach would tell you they have any real clue about what the team’s going to look like once you start playing real games.”
Here’s what to watch for when Arizona opens the 2025 season at the home of the Texas Rangers:
The batting order
Arizona returns 10 of its 13 most-used hitters from a year ago, highlighted by juniors Brendan Summerhill (OF) and Mason White (SS). That left-handed duo combined for 27 home runs and 124 RBI with both hitting over .300, and each is projected high on 2025 MLB Draft boards with Summerhill a likely first-round pick.
Also back are seniors Garen Caulfield (2B), Richie Morales (IF) Tommy Splaine (1B/C), juniors Adonys Guzman (C) and Maddox Mihalakis (3B) and sophomores TJ Adams (OF) Easton Breyfogle (OF), Andrew Cain (1B/DH).
Combined, that group of 10 made 424 starts last season for Arizona.
The only newcomer expected to start is former Samford outfielder Aaron Walton, a junior who hit .269 with 15 homers and 57 RBI last season. He’s been slotted in center, moving Summerhill to right, and could begin the year as the cleanup hitter.
Junior college transfer Mathis Meurant, a native of France by way of Cochise College, will also get a look at third base. Both corner infield spots could see a lot of mixing and matching early, with Splaine serving as the No. 2 catcher behind Guzman and opening up first for Cain.
“Lineup wise, it’s going to depend probably on lefty, righty pitcher starting,” Hale said. “It’s a tough one this year. We have a lot of guys that have earned the right to get at-bats, but there’s only nine guys that get to hit. So we’re going to probably move it around a little bit. There’s going to be guys that probably are going to be a little disappointed each day because they’ve earned the right to get starting positions. There’s probably 12 guys that have earned the right to get at-bats. It would be a good idea that they get a start in this series.”
The pitching plan
Arizona has announced its starting rotation for the weekend, and as expected it’s all new from a year ago. The Wildcats saw weekend starters Jackson Kent, Clark Candiotti and Cam Walty get drafted, leaving behind a trio of big shoes to fill.
Right-hander Collin McKinney will start Friday’s game against Ole Miss, pitching off the same mound he began the 2024 season on with Baylor. McKinney was one of three potential starters Arizona picked up from the NCAA transfer portal last summer.
A redshirt sophomore from Texas, McKinney said Arizona was one of the first teams to reach out to him after he decided to transfer and he was “blown away” by their pitch.
“It was just how honest they were,” he said. “Throughout the whole recruiting spiel, it felt like everything they said lined up. Almost seemed like one of those too good to be true moments, but everything is what I expected and more.”
Saturday’s starter against Clemson will be sophomore righty Owen Kramkowski, a Sahuarita native who struggled in three relief appearances last year but made huge strides in the fall and preseason. And Sunday’s finale against Louisville will mark the collegiate debut of freshman righty Smith Bailey, one of two top-tier pitching prospects(along with lefty Mason Russell) the Wildcats managed to avoid losing to the draft.
Coming soon to a mound near you… pic.twitter.com/46bBOmbdhk
— Arizona Baseball (@ArizonaBaseball) February 12, 2025
It’s very unlikely any of those three will go more than four or five innings, as Arizona has several other starting options that figure to get a look this weekend. They include Rutgers righty Christian Coppola, ex-Wisconsin-Whitewater righty Michael Hilker Jr., JUCO righty Jack Berg, the aforementioned Russell and junior righty Casey Hintz.
Hintz, who has made 51 relief appearances the past two seasons, has been stretched out the last month and could be used in a variety of ways.
“I’m open to starting, I’m open to the bullpen, whatever kind of helps the team be the most successful,” he said. “I’m hoping to do either one. I’ve kind of gotten to the mindset of every inning is the seventh inning.”
Arizona is bringing 16 pitchers for this tournament, and among them will be returning relievers Matthew Martinez, Eric Orloff and Tony Pluta as well as transfer Julian Tonghini, who was at Indiana in 2024 after playing at Boston College for two seasons when UA pitching coach Kevin Vance was on the Eagles’ staff.
Hale said the rotation for this tournament won’t necessarily be the one Arizona uses next weekend when it hosts San Diego at Hi Corbett Field.
“We could start three guys this weekend, and we’ve got enough guys stretched out that it could be three different guys next weekend,” he said. “Everybody’s gonna get a chance to pitch that you know probably goes on the road.”
The opponents
Ole Miss and Louisville missed out on the NCAA Tournament last season, but both programs have a long history of success. Clemson is ranked No. 15 in the D1Baseball preseason poll (Arizona is 21st) and is picked to finish fourth in the ACC, the second-best league behind the SEC.
Ole Miss won the 2022 College World Series title, beating Arizona twice in the Coral Gables Regional along the way, and coach Mike Bianco has won more than 1,000 games in his career. Against Arizona the Rebels will start lefty Hunter Elliott, who was a Freshman All-American in 2022 but missed all of last season and most of 2023 with an elbow injury.
Clemson features a lineup led by OF Cam Cannarella, who is ranked No. 4 on D1Baseball’s list of college prospects for the 2025 draft. The Tigers will be playing their first regular season games outside of the Eastern Time Zone since 2005 and the first two will be without head coach Erik Bakich, who will be serving a suspension after he was ejected in the Super Regionals in June.
Louisville has five Top 250 draft-eligible players in addition to outfielder Zion Rose, who batted .380 as a freshman last season.
Arizona is 8-6 all-time against this weekend’s opponents, with nine of the previous meetings coming into the postseason including three at the College World Series.
The expectations
Dating back to 2012, Arizona has reached the CWS every fourth NCAA Tournament (2020 didn’t have one), and since 2004 the Wildcats have advanced to at least the Super Regionals every fourth postseason. For those trends to continue they’ll have to end a 5-game NCAA tourney losing streak, one that included going 0-2 as a regional host at Hi Corbett last June.
Arizona was able to sneak up on teams a year ago, getting picked to finish ninth in the Pac-12 and then struggling against a very tough nonconference schedule before getting hot in league play and sweeping the titles. That isn’t the case this season, with a preseason national ranking and high projected Big 12 finish.
There’s also the added pressure of draft stock for the majority of Arizona’s expected key contributors. Of the 40 players on the roster 26 are draft-eligible, with Summerhill sitting at No. 12 on D1Baseball’s prospect list and White 69th. Summerhill is also a preseason All-American and on watch lists for various national awards.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t see it,” Summerhill said of the rankings and accolades. “But it doesn’t mean anything. I think we can all agree there’s one goal with this team. If we complete our team goal, what we want as individuals will happen.”
This weekend is just the start of another challenging non-league slate. San Diego made the NCAA tourney last year and Feb. 28-March 2 the Wildcats head to Houston for the Astros Foundation College Classic to face a trio of ranked SEC teams including No. 1 Texas A&M and No. 4 Tennessee, the teams that played for the CWS title a year ago.
“Some people think we’re crazy, but I think guys come here to do this,” Hale said. “It’s not going to hurt us, in my opinion. I think a lot of people think you have to win your whole preseason, I think you have to get better and figure out your team for the Big 12 season.”